Author: NewMexiKen

The storyline

That has been the dominant media theme for the last two decades in our political discourse, and particularly in our national elections. Leave policy and ideology to the side. Just ignore it. What matters is that Democrats and liberals are weak, effete, elitist, nerdy, military-hating, gender-confused losers, whose men are effeminate, whose women are emasculating dykes, and who merit sneering mockery and derision. Republican right-wing male leaders are salt-of-the-earth, wholesome, likable tough guys — courageous warriors and normal family men who merit personal admiration and affection.

From an excerpt of Great American Hypocrites, newly published by Glenn Greenwald.

The Disgusting Debate

In my ideal political world, both candidates would have told Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos to shut up and change the subject.

Rustbelt Intellectual

An hour into the latest Democratic Debate and overwhelmingly, the consensus is that ABC is doing a fine job… of completely ignoring the issues that concern Americans and focusing on minutia that is hurting the race, the Democratic party and the American electoral process.

Crooks and Liars

At the end, Gibson pompously thanked the candidates — or was he really patting himself on the back? — for “what I think has been a fascinating debate.” He’s entitled to his opinion, but the most fascinating aspect was waiting to see how low he and Stephanopoulos would go, and then being appalled at the answer.

Tom Shales

After the first forty minutes of last night’s Democratic debate, it was clear we were watching something historic. Not historic in a good way, mind you, but historic in the sense of being something so deeply embarrassing to the nation that it will be pointed to, in future books and documentary works, as a prime example of the collapse of the American media into utter and complete substanceless, into self-celebrated vapidity, and into a now-complete inability or unwillingness to cover the most important affairs of the nation to any but the most shallow of depths.

Congratulations are clearly in order. ABC had two hours of access to two of the three remaining candidates vying to lead the most powerful nation in the world, and spent the decided majority of that time mining what the press considers the true issues facing the republic. Bittergate; Rev. Wright; Bosnia; American flag lapel pins. That’s what’s important to the future of the country.

Daily Kos

An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos

It’s hard to know where to begin with this, less than an hour after you signed off from your Democratic presidential debate here in my hometown of Philadelphia, a televised train wreck that my friend and colleague Greg Mitchell has already called, quite accurately, “a shameful night for the U.S. media.” It’s hard because — like many other Americans — I am still angry at what I just witnesses, so angry that it’s hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking. Look, I know that “media criticism” — especially when it’s one journalist speaking to another — tends to be a genteel, collegial thing, but there’s no genteel way to say this.

With your performance tonight — your focus on issues that were at best trivial wastes of valuable airtime and at worst restatements of right-wing falsehoods, punctuated by inane “issue” questions that in no way resembled the real world concerns of American voters — you disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard-working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth, rather than worry about who can give us the best deal on our capital gains taxes. But it’s even worse than that. By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself. Indeed, if I were a citizen of one of those nations where America is seeking to “export democracy,” and I had watched the debate, I probably would have said, “no thank you.” Because that was no way to promote democracy.

Will Bunch at Philadelphia Daily News. There’s more.

Bunch, a journalist himself, says: “Although, to be blunt, I would also urge the major candidates in 2012 to agree only to debates that are organized by the League of Women Voters, with citizen moderators and questioners. Because we have proven without a doubt in 2008 that working journalists don’t deserve to be the debate ‘deciders.'”

A-fucking-men.

April 17th ought to be a national holiday

Today we celebrate the birthday

. . . of Olivia Hussey. Sixteen when she played Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, she’s 57 today.

. . . of Nick Hornby. He’s 51.

The book was called Fever Pitch (1992), and it came out at a time when football fans were generally looked down upon by the British upper class. But the book became something of a phenomenon in Great Britain, selling hundreds of thousands of copies, making it one of the best-selling books about sport ever published in the English language. Part of what made the book so popular was that it captured the way people can rely on a sports team to give their lives drama and meaning. Hornby wrote, “The natural state of the football fan is bitter disappointment, no matter what the score.”

The Writer’s Almanac

. . . of Liz Phair. She’s 41.

. . . of Jennifer Garner. She’s 36.

J. P. Morgan was born on this date in 1837.

[Morgan] began his career in 1857 as an accountant, and worked for several New York banking firms until he became a partner in Drexel, Morgan and Company in 1871, which was reorganized as J.P. Morgan and Company in 1895. Described as a coldly rational man, Morgan began reorganizing railroads in 1885, becoming a board member and gaining control of large amounts of stock of many of the rail companies he helped restructure. In 1896, Morgan embarked on consolidations in the electric, steel (creating U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation, in 1901), and agricultural equipment manufacturing industries. By the early 1900s, Morgan was the main force behind the Trusts, controlling virtually all the basic American industries. He then looked to the financial and insurance industries, in which his banking firm also achieved a concentration of control.

The American Experience

Karen Dinesen was born on this date in 1885. We know her as Isak Dinesen.

[S]o she decided to write about her experiences in Africa. Instead of writing an ordinary memoir, she wrote about her time in Africa as though it was a half-remembered dream in her book Out of Africa (1937).

She wrote, “Looking back on a sojourn in the African high-lands, you are struck by your feeling of having lived for a time up in the air.”

And, “[I watched] elephants … pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world … [and I once saw a] lion … crossing the grey plain on his way home from the kill, drawing a dark wake in the silvery grass, his face still red up to the ears.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Nikita Khrushchev was born on this date in in 1894. Khrushchev was Soviet Premier from 1954-1964. The New York Times has posted its lengthy obituary from 1971. One of the more infamous moments at the United Nations took place when Khrushchev visited there in 1960 and reportedly banged his shoe on the desk in a protest. Or maybe he didn’t. Read what NewMexiKen posted about this incident in 2004.

Thornton Wilder was born on this date in 1897.

As a boy, he lived near a university theater where they performed Greek dramas, and his mother let him participate as a member of the chorus. He never forgot the experience, and he decided then that he would try to write for the theater someday. He got a job at the University of Chicago and began to write a series of experimental one-act plays that used a minimum of scenery and props, and often included an all-knowing character called the Stage Manager. Then, in 1938, he produced the play for which he is best known, Our Town, one of the first major Broadway plays to use almost no stage scenery, so that the audience had to imagine the world in which the characters lived.

Our Town is about the New England village of Grover’s Corners, where the characters George Gibbs and Emily Webb grow up, fall in love at the soda fountain, and get married. When Emily dies in childbirth, she gets to relive the day of her 12th birthday and realizes how little she cherished life while she was alive.

The Writer’s Almanac

William Holden was born on this date in 1918. Holden was nominated three times for the Best Actor Oscar, winning for Stalag 17 in 1954. His other nominations were for Sunset Blvd. and Network. Holden is probably as well known for his portrayal of Hal Carter opposite Kim Novak in Picnic and as the leader of the demolition team intent on destroying Alec Guiness’ Bridge on the River Kwai.

But, most importantly, Emily, official younger daughter of NewMexiKen, was born on April 17th. Happy birthday Emily!

Horton Hears a Misogynist

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar takes exception to the sexism in Horton Hears a Who (the film).

What’s especially insidious here isn’t just that the subplot was written and approved and filmed, but that since the movie has come out, there hasn’t been a popular outcry about it. That we don’t even ask why, in the years it took to make the movie, no one along the line said, “This isn’t a good message to send to our kids.” Is it because sexism is so ingrained in our society that we don’t even flinch at it when it’s shoved in our faces?

Go read what he has to say.

And click here to see a mighty big rocking chair!

‘Over here on E Street, we’re proud to support Obama for President’

He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where “…nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.”

Part of a letter to “Friends and Fans” from Bruce Springsteen.

Best line of the day, so far

Yesterday Smokey, the apartment maintenance man next door, helped me haul a dead washing machine to the city dump. I asked him what he thought about the Obama thing.

“Huh?” he said.

He spoke for millions.

Joe Bageant

Bageant also tell us: “And I wouldn’t vote for any of the three even if they knocked on my door bearing a bucket of smoked pork ribs and a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

Call for help

This is addressed to any readers in the Albuquerque area. I need the name of a reliable tree service. Casa NewMexiKen has about a dozen piñons that appear to have black scale. The needles are dying quickly. I called a service and they came out and sprayed and talked a good story, but frankly I felt like I was doing business with somebody headquartered in a motel on Central on their way through town. That’s probably not fair, but I feel like I feel.

This is an emergency, but it gets expensive fast and I need reliability — and a strong comfort zone.

Anyone? You can comment or email.

Good Pope lines

“You know, President Bush actually met the Pope at the airport? And that wasn’t easy because, you know, they don’t let you stop at the curb anymore. So, Bush had to keep circling, the Pope runs out and Bush is driving by. The Pope is trying to get him. Oh, it was a huge, huge, big deal.”

“President Bush also told the Pope that he has prayed every single day since he became president. Hey, since Bush became president, we’ve all prayed every single day.”

— Jay Leno

“But when he was getting on his flight in Rome, he was almost not allowed on the aircraft because he tried to bring on more than three ounces of holy water.”

— David Letterman

“This morning, Pope Benedict arrived in the United States. More than 10,000 people are on the waiting list to get into the Pope’s mass at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. That’s Hannah Montana big.”

— Jimmy Kimmel

Is he stupid or just full of it?

Mr. McCain also called for wealthier Medicare recipients to pay higher premiums to qualify for the prescription drug coverage that President Bush and the Congress added to the program a few years ago, over his objections.

“People like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet don’t need their prescriptions underwritten by taxpayers,” he said.

John McCain as reported in The New York Times

Hello! Bill Gates is 52. He’s not eligible for Medicare. Once again McCain’s example is a bad one.

Besides, even among the “wealthier Medicare recipients” just how typical is Warren Buffet?

This is just plan demagoguery — or stupidity.

If you need any convincing

Here’s what the tobacco pharmaceutical gun plastic industry spokesman said about the potential harm in their products:

Steven G. Hentges of the American Chemistry Council’s polycarbonate/BPA group said the findings “provide reassurance that consumers can continue to use products made from bisphenol A.”

“The limited evidence for effects in laboratory animals at low doses primarily highlights opportunities for additional research to better understand whether these findings are of any significance to human health,” he said.

Source: Los Angeles Times

April 16th

Today we celebrate (or at least acknowledge) the birthday

. . . of Pope Benedict XVI, infallible at 81.

. . . of Bobby Vinton, his roses are still red my love at 73.

. . . of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 61.

. . . of Bill Belichick, 56.

. . . of Ellen Barkin, 54.

. . . of Peter Billingsley. Ralphie is 36.

Wilbur Wright was born on this date in 1867. He died of typhoid fever in 1912.

Charlie Chaplin was born on this date in 1889.

In a 1995 worldwide survey of film critics, Chaplin was voted the greatest actor in movie history. He was the first, and to date the last, person to control every aspect of the filmmaking process — founding his own studio, United Artists, with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith, and producing, casting, directing, writing, scoring and editing the movies he starred in. In the first decades of the 20th century, when weekly moviegoing was a national habit, Chaplin more or less invented global recognizability and helped turn an industry into an art. In 1916, his third year in films, his salary of $10,000 a week made him the highest-paid actor — possibly the highest paid person — in the world.

TIME 100

Henry Mancini was born Enrico Nicola Mancini on this date in 1924. He died of pancreatic cancer in 1994.

Mancini won four Oscars and twenty Grammys, the all-time record for a pop artist. For 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s alone, Mancini won five Grammys and two Oscars. Breakfast at Tiffany’s includes the classic “Moon River” (lyrics by Johnny Mercer), arguably one of the finest pop songs of the last 50 years. At last count, there were over 1,000 recordings of it. His other notable songs include “Dear Heart,” “Days of Wine and Roses” (one Oscar, two Grammys), and “Charade,” the last two with lyrics by Mercer. He also had a number one record and won a Grammy for Nino Rota’s “Love Theme From Romeo and Juliet.” Among his other notable film scores are The Pink Panther (three Grammys), Hatari! (one Grammy), Victor/Victoria (an Oscar), Two for the Road, Wait Until Dark, and 10. His television themes include “Peter Gunn” (two Grammys, recorded by many rock artists), “Mr. Lucky” (two Grammys), “Newhart,” “Remington Steele,” and The Thorn Birds television mini-series.

allmusic

Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born on this date in 1939. We know her as Dusty Springfield. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 1999, just 13 days after she died of breast cancer.

One of the finest pop-soul vocalists ever, Dusty Springfield was blessed with a powerful, smoky voice that ran the emotional gamut from cool sophistication to simmering passion. Over the course of a long, episodic career, she tackled adult pop, Memphis R&B and Motown-style soul, traditional folk and country, and contemporary dance music. She’s been called “one of the five mighty pop divas of the Sixties”-the others being Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross and Martha Reeves-and no less an authority than Berry Gordy credits her for helping the Motown sound take root in the U.K. Moreover, Springfield forcefully asserted herself as an artist and personality at a time when women were generally not given much leeway in the music industry. In 1964, she became Britain’s most popular female vocalist, and her popularity proved durable, as she enjoyed hits in four successive decades.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Greatest Guitar Riffs Ever

“Day Tripper”: The Beatles
“Layla”: Derek & the Dominos
“Sunshine of Your Love”: Cream
“Oh, Well”: Fleetwood Mac
“Funk #49”: The James Gang
“Gimme Three Steps”: Lynyrd Skynyrd
“Aqualung”: Jethro Tull
“Heartbreaker”: Led Zeppelin
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash”: The Rolling Stones
“The Train Kept A-Rollin'”: The Yardbirds
“Mannish Boy”: Muddy Waters
“Sunday, Bloody Sunday”: U2
“Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”: Van Halen

From a discussion at Achenblog which takes exception to a list from the London music schools.

If I understand the concept of riff properly — “a brief, repetitive musical figure designed to be the ‘hook’–or most memorable instrumental component–of a song” — then I might have to add Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman.”